Darklord Rooke

Are you sure? Absolutely positive? You don't feel the urge to test your hypothesis with real world experimentation? If you do ever feel like experimenting, remember to ... heh record/document your endeavours with a video camera and upload the video to a place where we can all ... enjoy thoroughly examine the results. Good luck

Target acquired >:c

God the community can be a childish place at times, and its attitude towards Insem is just one of the many examples of brattish behaviour. Good to see this released. Nice job, Insem + the peeps at Staircase Subs.

Women see a wider range of colours than men, or more specifically can see slight changes in shades more distinctly than men, which is part of the reason why they have a wider vocabulary when it relates to colours (the other being men just don't care ... unless you're talking about what colour wire to cut.) Also, remind me to kill whoever came up with the Audrey fanclub badge.

Loved Huniepop, but I'm giving this one a miss.

Oh? Let's talk Seinarukana then - is that why for years, Moogy and co. were going around saying 'the translation's been complete for ages, who know why the game hasn't been released or what they're doing'? It's only recently we found out they wanted a Steam release. Then there was that game which was stuck at 99% progress, it's "being inserted" for about a year. Was it Yumina? I can't remember. And who knows what's going on with half their Nitro+ stuff, like Sumaga. The delay for Root Double is less than a month, which is pretty small considering most delays in the game dev world, and miniscule compared with JAST. Communication could be better, but the wait is small enough that it should be bearable either way. If it gets pushed back to December, then again to next March then ...

I'm surprised the inclusion or exclusion of romance is such an important factor for people.

Ryoji is like, near 50, but he's no longer around. Krill's approaching 40. Clephas and Sanah are similar ages as me (and prob you.) Ittaku must be hella old. And I've heard a rumour that Tay is secretly a grand archwizard complete with white beard that touches the ground, which he winds around his toes and strums like a harp ... I just have a reputation cause apparently I'm grumpy. I deny everything, though

@harry_kinomotoA very interesting post :3 A couple of points, however: It doesn't. And if it did it would be so very, very wrong. Bishoujo games is described similar to that on Wiki, but that's a different class of games entirely. As an aside, while I'm talking about the wiki entry for VNs, wiki also comments on Japan differentiating between NVL (novel games) and ADV (adventure games) but this distinction not appearing in the West, and whether this is true in Japan I can't say but they failed to include the reason why. Traditionally adventure games have puzzles, a narrative, and exploration, most VNs in an ADV format don't fit this criteria and thus can't be described as adventure games over here. A bit off topic, sorry All stories are supposed to inspire feelings for their characters, after all at their heart stories are about people. If you don't inspire feelings for your characters in any medium, you're often regarded as having failed. I think VNs have advantages, and disadvantages in this regard, like most mediums do. It's almost as though you're implying something ... xD

Tell us how bad it is. I'm just curious. I know it's bad, but I don't have a good impression of 'how bad'

I think this is a fairly apt demonstration why tags used in this manner is fairly useless to the consumer xD

Great characters and story, dated and basic battle system though. JRPGs don't excel in the battle portion of an RPG, which wasn't really an issue in the past, but with advances in technology is an issue these days. It's one of the things they'll need to figure out but I doubt they will. I actually haven't played Trails of Cold Steel yet, I lent it to my sister and have yet to get it back (she's enjoying it that much.) She's looking forward to number 2 a lot. But we already got Trails in the Sky 1 and 2, and we got a nice PC version of them with improved translations, so I'm not too upset the other games in the series hasn't been licensed. It's one of the things you have to tolerate with localisations. Dating sim gameplay is fine as long as its done well, can't really comment on anything else, but I look forward to playing it ... someday.

I'm about to showcase my poor memory again. I remember someone commenting on this forum, from Brazil I think, on the price of MG VNs from Steam. Because of regional pricing I think they were getting it at less than half the price of US customers, which is nice. So yeah, definitely an advantage of Steam I'd just like to say that because Australia has no regional pricing, and our dollar is currently 70US cents, well ...

Depends on your reading speed. I read more than 10,000 words in 10 hours. Easily. I finish books in that time, over 10 times as big, but I've had a lot of practice reading. I know some who read faster, and some who read slower. This is why measuring VNs in 'hours' is useless. This is why you saying 'it's a 10 hour VN' when people's reading speeds vary wildly is useless - the people you're talking to can't get an accurate impression of size. That would depend on the time of day, and the speed limit. 30 minutes in peak hour traffic is often different from 30 minutes in normal traffic. What they may say is 'it will take 30 minutes to drive there' which means 'taking into consideration the time of day, the speed limit, and your driving habits, it will take 30 minutes to get there.' Context is implied. If they don't take that into consideration, they're giving you a bad estimate. Feel free to respond with a punch in the face. And when you say it's a 10 hour VN, it may mean 10 hours for you, 50 hours for Billy Bob, and 2 hours for Clephas. Who knows, too many variables. Time has never been an accurate or good way to measure how long a book is, and it never will either, despite what the VN community and VNDB like to practice. I brought this up in another thread. Slice of life character stuff in a slice of life story is cool. That is why YKK is one of the best manga created even though it was made 20 years ago, top slice of life. Literature also has this. HOWEVER, slice of life or too much slice of life in a story with a plot detracts from the story. The scenes may be humourous, it may show character interaction, but the plot always suffers. You may enjoy such novels, but it is undoubtedly a poor writing technique in most hands, and it will turn many, many people. Which is why SB scored LB a 4/10. Character development can occur within scenes which move the plot forward, and a few slice of life scenes are okay, but on the whole Japanese VNs overdo it. Most of Key VNs overdo it for starters. Deardrops probably. Kira Kira probably. Ever 17 definitely etc etc. I see my memory has failed me again ... 90's, something related to JAST went bankrupt, I'm sure of it ... A lot of work, Sanah Very few people are willing to work for their hobby

Well, it's not about 'fairness', it's about making responsible business decisions. In your scenario, I would make the exact same comparison ... er, in reverse. The AO versions had many, many years to prove their viability before companies headed to Steam (through desperation because nobody bought anything.) While a perfect comparison doesn't exist today, it's more than fair to say eroge was struggling beforehand - unlike VNs on Steam, the adult only content sold beforehand never really proved their viability as a market. MG was always struggling, JAST went bankrupt once before. Now all age stuff is being released on Steam and people are saying 'give AO a chance, strip away the advantages of Steam and we'll show you that AO content is equally viable' - well, people had many years to show this and diddly-squat happened, and the advantages of Steam are half the point (adult only games struggle for mindshare in the Western community, e.g.)

Nobody else is A truly tragic day ... Congratulations on the magic 500, Valmore.

Not much hype surrounding Babel

Down's already given an excellent response to the AO issue, so I'll concentrate on this. A short story tends to be any piece of work under approximately 10,000 words. Because VNs have routes, you'd could make a case that this word count only includes the number of words for one route instead of all up, so 10,000 words through one route/playthrough. The idea that you'd use a time system which varies greatly is silly, and the idea that it's 10 hours is out of kilter with traditional standards. A novel is anything over 40,000 words (for one route, if you want to go down that path.) Many Japanese VNs ARE long, that is true, but it should be noted that it's because they bloat their character/word count with useless scenes and meaningless fluff. That's called 'making your novel longer through poor writing.' Writers who write tightly plotted novels and scenes shouldn't be penalised and feel they need to reach a massive number of words because people want to pander to the poor writing practices of others. Also the community now has the opportunity to show Dovac he's wrong. Isn't this a glorious day? So instead of /jp/ sitting on their glutei maximi all day talking out their arse like they always do, they now have the opportunity to prove shit by putting their money where their mouth is. You want to show Dovac he's wrong, buy the damn games people. Considering pre-Steam MG's bestselling games moved 2,000 copies, and post Steam everybody's moving a lot more, I doubt the number will be impressive.

That first screenshot, I couldn't help but wrinkle my nose and grimace. Just not pleasant to read at all

Okay fellas, 2 days before release. What do we think of this title? I will say I like that more publishers are willing to dive into VNs, and this isn't the first title Fruitbat's localised. Pretty awesome stuff. I haven't had the time to look very deep into this release, so ... erm: Pros - Art is gorgeous, there's an actual story Cons - Writing's a little sloppy in provided samples, e.g. "standing in nearly the centre" should be -> "standing near the centre." And I'll stop there, I'm sick of going into various writing deficiencies. Most people won't notice, anyway. What purty pictures though

Is that so ...? How very interesting. You know, I’ve heard it does wonders for your mental health if you bought random people on the internet, like me for instance, random gifts and presents. And the improvement in your mental condition leads to an improvement in your physical conditioning – less stress, healthier heart, more muscles, a six pack, you smell nicer. So if you want to improve your well-being, you should totes buy people on the internet (and by ‘people’ I really mean ‘me’) goodies and treats :3 Seems like a healthy attitude. Not as healthy as gift-giving, but healthy nonetheless. Can't really fault you here. Those years that got shaved off your life, you wouldn't mind if I picked those up would you? I mean, you're clearly not using them ...

The past few days I’ve had pain going from my lower back to just above my knee. Not severe, just an intense, annoying ache. But today that’s gone. I feel good. Healthy. It prob won't last long so I’ll have to take advantage of the occasion and get up to mischief ...

Mostly on /jp/. I think Dovac's Steam-centric focus has been a reasonable business decision, personally. His challenge to people that want more AO stuff is also reasonable, if you want it, buy it. I'd rather they do this. There's less narration in manga (almost non-existent) and less dialogue overall. People pay attention to the writing less. The manga medium suits dodgy writers like them more than the VN medium. Go do manga, Winged Cloud.

Agree with this, btw. [nitpicky mode]Also, why is Ryechu represented by a picture of a Pikachu and not a Ryechu? :S [/nitpicky mode] Always good to see you around, Tiag, even if your avatar is now a pale, chibi-like shadow of it's former, distinguished self

If it has narration, and branches/choices, I don't see why not?